


Cliff Notes

by SirLadySketch



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Just mage stuff, Magic Lessons, explaining magic to a nonmagic user, writing people who are smarter than you is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 19:20:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6672283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirLadySketch/pseuds/SirLadySketch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian receives a plea for help with an offer he can't refuse. (hint: it's booze) Follow-up fic to my short story "Changes," wherein Solas decides that being so closely tied to the Fade means that a non-magic using Inquisitor is susceptible to demons, and thinks that magic lessons are a good idea. What could possibly go wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cliff Notes

**Author's Note:**

> *Huge* thanks to Adenicy for betaing this for me! <3
> 
> If you want to read "Changes," the story that comes immediately before this one, go here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3756613

The summons was odd for a number of reasons. One, it asked him to attend the Inquisitor almost immediately after lunch, a time that he knew she spent with her paramour when they were supposedly deep in ‘study,’ and he hardly wanted to walk into her chambers to find them _in flagrante delicto_. Not that she’d been able to coax the older man into her bed, but Dorian knew that was not for want of trying (and he had gold sitting on the matter, so it was important to be in the know of these things.)

There was also the matter that she never asked him to come to her rooms. When they met, she was always the one to come to him, or they met in the tavern or in the library or some other equally innocuous setting. Visiting her chambers seemed a bit more personal than their usual encounters, which either meant that she had something terribly private that she needed to discuss away from the keep’s inhabitants, or that the elves had a deliciously scandalous (albeit untempting) proposition for him. Knowing how reserved the two in question were, however, the former was far more likely.

The third off-putting thing about the whole affair was the fact that the summons had come in the form of a note hastily scrawled on the back of an old missive about bears in the Hinterlands. It had taken him a few minutes of scanning the codex in search of hidden messages and ciphers before he realized the message was on the back of the paper. What was more, all it said was _“HELP. Aftr lnch, nd rscu. Wl have booze fr brb.”_

He knew it to be the Inquisitor’s hand because not only was it her spidery handwriting, she was also the only one who used that terrible field shorthand that fell just short of illiterate. A charming quirk, but it often left him wondering if she knew how to write in full sentences, or if the Dalish simply left out random letters to be difficult, or if it was just her way of getting a message out as quickly as possible and she didn’t realize how baffling it was to translate.

It made the fact that she’d bothered to write out “booze” in full for him all the more endearing. Bless her for highlighting the best bits.

Oh, he’d visit, of course. He was far too intrigued to do otherwise, and there were only so many conversations one could stand about archaic book cataloguing methods before one throttled the head archivist.

He lingered in the main hall until about a quarter past the hour, by which time most of the visitors were off for their afternoon siestas and the servants had gathered the empty plates. Dorian held the door open for the Inquisitor’s chamber maid as she bustled out the door with a tray of luncheon plates-- two sets, so Solas was, in fact, in the room with her. He slipped in the door after the maid was through and paused to listen, but either the tower muffled the sounds of the room above, or they weren’t going at it like…. well, perhaps rabbits was a bit offensive, given the circumstances. Lusty nugs, then.

Still, he stomped his way up the stairs, just in case.

Apparently the sound traveled better than expected, because by the time he got to the second doorway, Solas held the heavy door open with an inquisitive frown on his face. Dorian beamed at him as he brushed past, striding up the stairs as though he’d done so a thousand times before. 

“I’ve come to steal away the attentions of your lady love! Or, perhaps this is the point where I play the villain and cast you from your lady’s chambers,” he smirked as he caught the twitch in Solas’ eyebrow, gesturing broadly as he finished making his grand entrance into the bedchambers. “I’m afraid I’ve got rather an important meeting with the Inquisitor, you see, and it simply cannot wait.”

He reached the top of the stairs and caught sight of Remli seated behind a mountain of books, face smudged with ink and her hair askew. Not tousled as though she’d hastily gotten up from the bed or chaise, but askew in a manner that suggested the fingers running through her hair were her own, and the smudges along her face were from her palms scrubbing away long hours of concentration without fruition. Still, her face lit up at the sight of him and she dropped the tome on the desk, leaping from her chair to greet the mages as they entered the room.

“Dorian!” she greeted him, a flush across her cheeks, “Was our meeting today? Goodness, how terribly forgetful of me.” She turned to Solas, walking over to gather his hands in hers. “Ir abelas Vhenan, but I completely forgot that I’d asked Dorian up to discuss some things this afternoon.”

Solas said nothing, although the slight rise of his eyebrows and the thoughtful glance at Dorian had her stumbling over words to explain herself. “I thought we could speak of his ideas on ways we can persuade Tevinter representatives to visit. To, ah, speak about peace talks. And defeating Corypheus. And improving the state of the elves in the country. And ways to keep out the Orlesians. Do you mind if we continue this lesson later tonight?”

There was a moment of silence, all three of them hearing the terrible lie but no one quite willing to call her on it. Remli flushed but kept the forced smile on her face, and Dorian cleared his throat, suddenly finding the books stacked by the fireside riveting. (And who wouldn’t be impressed with Varric’s entire Swords and Shields collection, so brazenly displayed for anyone to see?) Solas frowned, a flicker of concern crossing his face, but it quickly smoothed out into his usual placid expression.

“Of course, Inquisitor,” he replied, hearing the dismissal but not demanding an explanation. He simply gave her hands a gentle squeeze and turned to leave, but she caught him as he began to pull away and tugged him down for a kiss-- a silent apology for sending him away with such a terrible lie. Still, he accepted the apology with relish and returned the gesture with interest, the slight stiffness of his shoulders easing as she began to melt against him.

They broke apart when Dorian gave a pointed cough, and Remli leaned against the high-backed chair as Solas bid them farewell once again. This time he moved more smoothly, his gait measured and even as he headed down the stairs. The room remained silent as he departed, and for several minutes after the quiet click of the door closing shut, Dorian and the Inquisitor stood without speaking.

“You know, I almost took a bet with Varric that it was your terrible technique that was keeping our resident Fade mage at arms length. You may be a terrible liar-- and we’ll need to work on that if you’re not going to get eaten alive in court-- but given that little display I clearly would have lost that little wager.” He waggled his eyebrows and gave her one of his most charming grins. “Hurry up and bed the man, won’t you? I’ve got a lot of money riding on this.”

“Hmm….” she replied, still staring at the stairs with a distant smile on her face. She rested her head on folded arms, and gave a long sigh. “If I tied him down, do you think he’d get the hint? Or would that scare him off?”

“Is this why you needed me to rescue you? You wanted advice on how to get men into the sack?” he asked, only half-joking. She groaned and buried her face in her arm.

“Noooo….” she sighed again, then peeked up at him through her bangs. “Unless you have some suggestions…?” He laughed and she pushed off of the chair, running fingers through her hair and walking over to her desk. “No, that’s not why I called you up. I have a legitimate problem, and I think you’re my only hope.”

Dorian sauntered over to the chaise and draped himself over it, settling in for the duration. “When you say it like that, how can I resist? Tell me your woes, my dear, and I shall be happy to advise.”

She dropped a book in his lap, making him grunt as the weight of it dug into his stomach. He shifted it to a more comfortable position so he could get a better look at what she’d given him and she clambered over him to perch on the railing beside the couch.

He recognized it immediately as one of the Southern primers for mages-- basic spellwork for mages who came into their abilities a little later in life. Granted, Dorian had never heard of someone suddenly learning magic in their thirties after a lifetime without magic, but then he’d never heard of someone managing to embed an ancient elven artifact into their hand after walking bodily in the Fade, either. He flipped through a few of the pages, noting that Solas had taken the time to write in a few rather insightful notes in the margins, further explaining diagrams and theories. He looked up at her, and she wrinkled her nose.

“I don’t understand it,” she admitted. He chuckled, shifting to drop the tome on the floor.

“I could have sworn you already had a magic tutor. I also arrived under the impression that you were in dire need of a break from learning magic. In fact, I have a letter -- with terrible spelling, mind you-- stating that you wanted me to rescue you from said tutor and magic lesson today, immediately after lunch. You also promised booze. That was most distinct.”

She sighed, picking up a pillow to pluck at its tassled edge. “I have no bloody idea what’s going on in the book,” she admitted, tugging on the silken fringe. “You and Solas have conversations about crafting spells and manipulating the Veil all of the time, and trying to follow along makes my head ache. I was hoping that you could break it down into a non-magical layman’s terms for me.”

“.. and the reason why you’re asking me these questions instead of Solas is...?” he asked, and she brought the pillow up to her face with a groan. He laughed, and finished his own question, “It’s because you don’t want to show him how little you understand.”

“In part, yes,” she admitted, then laughed, chagrinned. “But also because when he’s up here and within reach it’s terribly distracting, and it’s everything I can do to keep from jumping him the moment he gets close to the bed.”

“I’m rather surprised you haven’t done so already, but then, Solas can be a slippery fish if he doesn’t want to get caught. Alright, I’ll try to help you net him-- but only because I have five gold crowns riding on your love life, mind you.” He stretched back and spread his hands wide, gesturing with symbols he drew in the air. 

“It’s all rather simple,” he began. “You see, the Veil is a construct set up between the living world and the Fade, neither completely here nor completely separated from the physical attributes of--”

“Dorian, speak to me like I’m a child just learning about magic for the first time,” she interrupted, frown on her face. He sighed, and tried again.

“The magic you sense and manipulate does not come from within, not entirely. You draw upon the power from the Fade by breaking into and around the Veil---”

“Dorian,” she sighed, then bit her lip, shaking her head. “I don’t have that frame of reference. I can feel Rifts, but only because the mark makes my arm go numb or tingle. I don’t feel magic. You need to explain it to me in much simpler terms. Speak to me like… like…” she trailed off, then laughed. “Speak to me like you’re an Orlesian noblewoman explaining the differences between a salad fork and a dessert fork to an Avvar berserker.”

Dorian gave her a long look, sighed, then held up his hands.

“We live in one world--” he gestured to his left to her bed. “The Fade is in another world.” He gestured to his right towards her desk. Then he leaned forward, pulled a blanket off of the bed, and then held it up into the space between. “The Veil is a barrier that separates the two places. They both exist within the same room, but they do not lay on top of one another.”

He broke off, frowning. “Well, they do, but that’s a bit too complicated. Let me see if I can think of another way to put this…” He scratched his chin in thought, nodded as an idea came to him, and raised the blanket again. “Think of it as the air we breathe. There’s the good air that we can breathe in-- that’s our reality-- and there’s the air we breathe out -- that’s the Fade. Both in the same space, but separate. You see?”

She frowned, taking the pillow from him.

“So the blanket-- excuse me, the Veil-- is constructed of both? Where does the magic come into play?”

“Hmm... well, think of magic like smoke. The Fade is full of it, and there are places in our world where it bleeds through-- holes in the Veil, that sort of thing. A mage is someone who has a very good nose for detecting that smoke, and some skill in forcing it into shapes as it leaks through the Veil. Think of smoke rings, but instead of wispy circles you get explosions, or lightning, or fire, and so forth. The shape that smoke takes depends on what the person manipulating the smoke has learned how to make.”

She nodded, staring at the fabric as she worked through the analogy. She flexed her left hand, the crackle of magic flickering over the surface of her palm.

“So the anchor….”

“It’s like a pair of scissors and a needle and thread, all combined into one.” He made a stabbing gesture at the blanket, drawing his fist across the fabric as though he was gutting it. “You can use your anchor to tear open the Veil, or, if you find a hole, you can mend it.”

“So, what? Having the anchor means I can smell smoke, too?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?” he asked, patting her on the knee. “Tell me, have you been able to cast any of the barriers Solas showed you? Can you feel the pull of a spell on the Veil when it’s cast?”

“No and no,” she replied, then paused. “I can feel Solas’ spells sometimes. He thinks it’s because his magic is so intrinsically based on his knowledge of the Fade that the anchor recognizes and responds to it. But I can’t do anything other than open and close rifts.”

“Well, perhaps you can only smell a certain type of smoke, then.” He shrugged. “A highly sensitized and yet desensitized nose which means you can only manipulate a single type of magic and are nose-blind to all other spells.”

“Hmmm….” she mused, staring at the blanket again. “That makes some sort of sense, thank you. And it would explain why I can’t get the basic spells to work, even though Solas has tried showing them to me over and over.” Her gaze flickered up to meet his, a grin breaking across her face. “But I think I shall continue the lessons-- if for no other reason that it feeds my fantasies about seeing Solas looking mussed and tangled in my sheets, and it gives me an opportunity to set those fantasies into motion.”

“That is not something I want to think about,” Dorian said, standing up and brushing down his tunic. “If that’s everything you needed, I think I’ll take my leave. I’ve smoke rings of my own to make, afterall.”

She stood as well, looking much happier than she had when he’d interrupted her lesson. She held up a hand to make him wait and went around her desk to retrieve a honey-colored bottle from one of the drawers. She handed it to him with a smile.

“I hope this will help those smoke rings along, then,” she said, laughing at his bewildered look.

“Sun Blonde?” he scoffed, sneering a little at the sickeningly sweet brew. “My dear Inquisitor, you promised me booze, not hopes and dreams in a bottle. You know I never touch the stuff. Far too mawkish and uplifting for my tastes.”

“I have it on very good authority that Bull enjoys it,” she replied, standing on tip-toe to give him a peck on the cheek before ushering him out the door. “Be a love and send up my smokey beloved, will you? And do let me know if you think the knots would work. If you can help me wrangle him, there’s another crown in it for you. Or another Sun Blonde, at the very least.”

“Well, when you ask so nicely, how can one refuse?” he asked, then paused at the top of her stairs, bottle under one arm. “If you need an abridged explanation again let me know and I’ll do my best to help. Really, though, you might want to just tell Solas that there are more constructive ways to spend your time then reading spell books you can’t actually use.”

“I’ve thought of it,” she admitted, picking up the heavy book and giving it a loving pat. “But I want to understand, just so I can follow along with the two of you as you discuss theories. And you know, if you ever want to learn about hunting or tracking or-- how was it you put it? Oh yes, ‘dancing naked in the moonlight to invoke harvest blessings,’ let me know. I can help you with the first two, at the very least. You might ask Bull about the latter.”

“I’ll stick to Sun Blonde if it’s all the same to you.” He waved and headed down the stairs at last. “Cheerio! And best of luck-- remember, five crowns!”’

**Author's Note:**

> I never play a mage and there have been some pretty spiffy theories about how magic works in Thedas lately so it got me to thinking: how do you explain magic to a non-mage? I hope this makes sense/fits into what we find out about canon magic use, haha.


End file.
